By Rachel Withers

When I first heard about this film, I wasn't even going to watch it. If I would have known or paid attention to the fact that it was based on a true story, I would have wanted to watch it sooner. After I watched Alpha Dog and saw that it was in fact a true crime story, I decided to do some research of my own and here is what I came up with in case anyone out there is as interested in true crime stories as I am. 

Ok first off, this film was based on a true crime story. The character in the film is named Johnny Truelove. Johnny's real life name is Jesse James Hollywood. Jesse was a drug dealer. He was one of the youngest men to be on the FBI's most wanted list. 

When you see the film it is basically your typical young druggy story. A lot of teens having too good of a time with too many drugs and too much sex and alcohol. In the true life version Jesse of course is in the center of it all, throwing parties and enjoying his bit of power that he has going on from being a drug dealer. He has his group of friends/posse/lackeys that hang with him and do things for him and with him. Now Jesse was only 20 at the time and he had a friend by the name of Ben Markowitz. In the movie, Ben Foster plays the character Jake Mazursky who is actually portraying Ben Markowitz. Ben and Jesse had been good friends at one time. Ben had done his dabbling in drugs and sold dope with Jesse at one time. Ben had decided to get clean and got a job and was engaged. There was one slight problem though, Ben still owed Jesse 1200 dollars. 

The fact that Ben owed Jesse money did not go over well with Jesse. The two had then gotten into some nasty fights over that fact and a lot of other things as well happened between the both of them. Ben foiled an insurance scam that Jesse was working on and then Jesse went to a restaurant that Ben's fiance worked at and stuck her with the bill. In return Ben wrecked Jesse's house. Jesse being a drug dealer and also both young men having explosive tempers, the situation just kept escalating and niether one could just let it end there.